Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Almost three years ago I presented to you osurec's wonderful find, Coalition - Mindsweepers from 1976. Their second and last album was very hard to find until someone unearthed it in a flea market for a couple of dollars of all places… (such is the survival of these masterpieces, analogous to Petronius' Satyricon surviving as a toilet paper roll's worth of pages through the middle ages…) It did cost me an arm and a leg to get my hands on the vinyl though, and now I'll present it to you publicly from my wheelchair after having finally resold the record at a huge loss.

Evidently the band went in a more commercial direction like so many others at this time, abandoning the classical music influences that made the former record such a progressive wonder. Now we have only straight ahead soul jazz with one attempt (to my mind quite successful) at forging a radio friendly hit (Thinking of You, sampled below).

Those who prefer fusion, progressive, or hard rock, should stay away, really this is just another astral jazz album. But on those terms alone, it's quite good. Note that, oddly enough, the back is the same as the front. Here more infos: http://www.discogs.com/Coalition-Birth/release/829852

And stay tuned to our show, because coming in the next few weeks we'll hear more free jazz with vocal stylings (for ushaped and myself) as well as return to progressive treasures lost from the past and some more of that kraut hard rock I love so much, sprinkling in some records from the least favourite subgenre of prog, RIO… Also I want to revisit Alan Hawkshaw, the brilliant composer of library music, his "Contemporary Contrasts" was quite a popular post in this space…